Saba Imtiaz’s ‘Karachi You Are Killing Me’ to be adopted for Bollywood movie

The Bollywood filmmakers of the upcoming Akshay Kumar and Nimrat Kaur starrer movie “Airlift” have bought the film rights of bestselling novel “Karachi, You’re Killing Me”, written by Pakistani journalist and author Saba Imtiaz. Airlift has been planned as India’s answer to the acclaimed Hollywood film, “Bridget Jones’s Diary.” The book’s author, Saba Imtiaz, is confirmed to closely involved in developing the film’s screenplay. The shooting of the movie will start later this year.

The novel, which chronicles the life of Ayesha Khan, a progressive-thinking journalist in her late twenties, who drinks and smokes, putting her modern attitude in contrast to the city’s orthodox elements, had become a roaring success upon its release. “It’s a comedy of manners in a city with none,” is how the author described her debut novel.

It’s tentatively called “Delhi, You’re Killing Me” and will be entirely set in the Old Delhi environment. The book’s author, Saba Imtiaz, will be closely involved in developing the film’s screenplay.

Confirming this, the film’s producer Vikram Malhotra told Indian news paper Mirror, that he read the book, the very day after he came across a review that described it as a cross between Bridget Jones’s Diary and Diary of a Social Butterfly.

“The story excited me just the way Queen had when Vikas Bahl had first narrated it to me. I have full faith that ‘Karachi….’ would translate into a film that will resonate with today’s audience, especially women as they will see a slice of their lives in it! Work is on in full swing on adapting the book into a film and we will finalize the cast soon,” said Malhotra.